by him in the Legislative Assembly on the 20th instant.
Nor has the Congress in any shape or form intended or attempted to “exercise strong political power”. The following are the objects of the Congress, which were published in almost every paper in South Africa last year:
- “1. To bring about a better understanding and promote friendliness between the Europeans and the Indians residing in the Colony.
- “2. To spread information about India and the Indians by writing to newspapers, publishing pamphlets, lecturing, etc.
- “3. To educate the Indians, especially [those] born in the Colony about Indian History, and induce them to study Indian subjects.
- “4. To ascertain the various grievances the Indians are labouring under and to agitate by resorting to all constitutional methods for removing them.
- “5. To enquire into the condition of the indentured Indians and to help them out of special hardships.
- “6. To help the poor and the needy in all reasonable ways.
- “7. And generally to do everything that would tend to put the Indians on a better footing morally, socially, intellectually, and politically.”
It would thus appear that the object of the Congress is to resist degradation, not to gain political power. As to funds the Congress has a property worth £1,080 and a balance of £148-7s 8d in the Bank, at the time of writing this. These funds have to be used in charity, printing memorials and working expenses. In your Memorialists’ humble opinion they are hardly sufficient to fulfil the objects of the Congress. The educational work is greatly hampered owing to want of funds. Your Memorialists, therefore, venture to submit that the danger which the present Bill is intended to guard against does not exist at all.
Your Memorialists, however, do not request Her Majesty’s Government to accept the above facts as correct on their ipse dixit. If there is any doubt about any of them—and the most important fact is that there are thousands who do not possess the necessary property qualifications for becoming voters—then the proper course, your Memorialists submit, is to enquire about them, particularly to enquire how many Indians there are in the Colony who possess immovable property of the value of £50 or who pay a yearly rent of £10. To prepare such a return would neither cost much time nor much money, and would be a very material help towards a satisfactory solution of the franchise question.
